


Breaking Infinity

by ArabellaCastre



Series: The Scarlet Witch [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Team as Family, Wanda is stupid powerful, Whump, alternative ending, her powers are canonically fuelled by emotions so oh boy, highkey rip mr toaster, thanos is getting beat tf up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 09:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18443636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArabellaCastre/pseuds/ArabellaCastre
Summary: A re-imagining of Vision’s death in infinity war, but this time, Thanos doesn’t stand a chance. Wanda is one of the most powerful beings in existence, and he’s just murdered the closest thing she has left to family.





	Breaking Infinity

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! For everyone who was following this series, welcome back! I’m focusing on a multi chapter story atm, but I loved writing this and I hope you enjoy this lil surprise one-shot addition :) X  
> Alsooooo the italics messed up so some bits are gonna look a bit weird and not as effective as they should be. I’m sorry I’m tired

Wanda scrambles across the dirt to get to Vision- whatever there is left of Vision (she did that, _she_ killed him- oh _god_ , Vision)-to be with him, to touch him, she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care...

 She’d nearly managed it as well, can almost grasp the soft fabric of his cape (now so unnervingly, _horrifically_ still) and there are fresh, hot tears down her face when enormous hands grab her suddenly, and she’s slammed backwards to the ground.

 Wanda lays there for a second, the shock pinning her to a bed of dead leaves that crinkle uncomfortably under her weight. Landing square on her back knocks the oxygen straight out of her lungs, but they never quite replenish. She stays empty, hollow almost.

 Subconsciously, she braces for his oncoming attack, but she makes no move to defend herself, or to pull off some fancy, well timed counter. She doesn’t want to fight. The fight, the battle, the intergalactic war-it’s all over. The fight is _done_.

 If she opens her eyes, she can probably see her love’s corpse, broken and mangled, mutilated beyond recognition. But closed, closed she sees much worse: crimson light cascading from her palm, forced to bend against every instinct and seize the yellow stone, energy pouring into cracks, burning, splintering. Closed, she sees the face of her love, her Vis, as her magic buckles a dent in his skull. Wanda’s eyes snap open the second the adrenaline lets up, and all that fills her vision is the blurry frame of the giant strolling towards her.

 Some faraway compulsion screams at her to _run_ , but she doesn’t. She doesn’t care all that much about living, and she sure as hell doesn’t want to fight anymore. Besides, he’s lost, and they’ve won, she made sure of that ( _she_ _screams_ _as_ _she_ _pushes_ _forwards_ , _and_ _the_ _vibranium_ _crumples_ , _Vision_ _screeches_ ).

 Despite this, the brute hasn’t given up. Five infinity stones are pressed into the enormous fist he holds forward as he walks but now they’re dull, greyed and murky, as if the loss of their brother has cut wires of their own; Wanda knows how that feels, distantly. From her tilted worldview though, fists of dry grass at her sides, she doesn’t find a warped expression of a madman’s fury upon his ugly face, as she’d assume.

 He’s directly above her now, that strangely placid, nonplussed expression staring down, and if she knew him any less she’d believe it might have been sadness. Wanda doesn’t shift, just waits, tears slipping down her face at odd angles, though she doesn’t feel sad anymore, she’s far past that; she feels absolutely nothing- numb, black nothing. She feels the exact same as he brings up his huge fist over her skull, though her muscles twitch unwillingly as she waits for him to bring it right back down in one heavy movement.

 Unusually for a Jew, Wanda’s never been all that hopeful for an afterlife. In this moment, however, it’s all she can do to dream of seeing Vision’s unmarked face once more.

 She closes her eyes, and she waits.

 The impact, though, never comes. Not hard, or fast or brutal. In trade, a massive purple hand grasps her head lightly and she flinches, recoiling so violently from the unwelcome touch that she kicks a great cloud of dust and grit into the sky. She splutters and he picks her up gently, places her in a seated position like a rag doll.

 Again she’s taken aback by the emotion in his face: his plan, his entire mission had been ruined, _she’d_ ruined it. He’s lost the battle, been stopped from achieving his life’s work by _her_ , and yet here he is, something akin to sympathy written in his features. Perhaps he really does feel guilty, a small nameless voice offers up in a whisper: she pictures a touch of remorse swirling round the enormous, gaping cavity of his rotten soul. For a reason she can’t place, this makes her nauseous. Why is he the one looking at her pityingly? Why does he look sorry when she’s the one who’s ruined _his_ life? When she’s the one who’s crawled out of this mess victorious?

 He holds her head, her skull like a marble in his vast fingers, and brings up her chin until they’re at eye-level. His are icy and cold, absolutely unforgiving. She knows what he sees in return: hers are blank, void of life and energy, any hint of a spark.

 “Today I lost more than you can know,” He says, his voice booming through the trees. In another time and place perhaps, she’d argue, or dwarf his apparent struggle next to her own. Now, however, she doesn’t. She wants, _needs_ , him to get this over with. She doesn’t answer him, only glares; silently testing him, willing him into a flare of revenge.

 Wanda begs internally for this to end, and once again she’s denied the release. He drops her head and she slumps, watching him carefully as he discards her and walks around. “But now is no time to mourn,” his deep, foreign voice grumbles robotically, and she melts back down into the ground, having no inclination to listen to an evil monologue. Perhaps she’ll drift off here, next to Vision, and never wake up...

 “Now,” he begins again, but this time something is _very_ wrong. His broad voice carries such different energy than previouslythat her attention is instantly piqued and now she’s actually sat up on her own jurisdiction, panicked and frantic and _feeling_. He isn’t moping- he isn’t pissed- he’s still got a plan- “Is no time at all.”

 The next sequence of events happen so quickly that Wanda barely has a fraction of a second to think before she acts. As the brute (Thanos, a nameless voice supplies) utters that pivotal last word he slams his great ugly arm forward and seizes; a shimmering wheel of vivid green symbols and hexes alights around his wrist like a bracelet, pulsing erratically.

 She opens her mouth to yell instinctively, the horrific, splitting, guttural scream of a wounded animal as she recognises the familiarity of the light show, glittering in the African sunset...

 Thanos is attempting to use the time stone, and it’s _working_.

 It’s unstable, the gauntlet steaming and creaking, but it’s working nonetheless. He begins to yank his wrist around in a clockwise motion, but Wanda’s world has slowed to such an extent that the wheel of symbols around his wrist barely shifts.

 And now, she’s angry. Hell, she’s _furious_.

 Thanos’ saviour complex had, only moments ago, forced her to murder her love- her best friend, her only family- her Vision (“ _You_ _could_ _never_ _hurt_ _me_ ,” _he_ _whispers_ , _and_ _huge_ _sobs_ _wrack_ _her_ _body_ _as_ _her_ _palm_ _alights_ ). She’s only allowing her heart to continue beating because this is what Vis wanted: he knew that it was over, and he wanted, no, _needed_ (“ _Please_ ,” _he_ _begs_ _over_ _and_ _over_ , _his_ _features_ _warped_ _in_ _anguish_ ) for it to end on his own terms. His noble decision of sacrifice had all but saved the world. In doing so, Wanda’s world had been swallowed up by amassive black hole.

 In this second, as lurid emerald light fills her eyes, there isn’t the slightest chance that she’ll let their effort be futile. She can’t see her own future past trauma and insurmountable grief now flooding her veins, but she can ensure that Vision’s slaughter was not without purpose. There’s no way in hell that the raving genocidal maniac is completing his psychotic episode of a plan- the world and all its stars aside, he made Wanda _murder_ the last person on this earth that meant a damn to her.

 A magnificent fire swells in her chest: regret, grief, magic and pure molten _fury_ , burning so furiously, so incredibly hot and livid, and she knows right at that moment that she can turn the entire planet to dust with her fingertips.

 Crumpled in the dirt and undergrowth, her hands tremble convulsively; the entirety of her tiny body shudders. Thanos, if he even has time to register the situation, thinks it’s purely emotion, but she knows better. It’s fuel.

 And she knows, at that very second, that the other avengers have scrambled back to this clearing. She can’t make out their familiar shapes, but she _knows_ because she’s hyper-aware of every movement within a square mile. They’re all cowering in the surrounding trees- Natasha and Bruce, Steve with Bucky, Rhodey, Sam, the King alongside his generals- they’re watching in some bizarre semblance of a theatre, waiting with baited breath...

 Wanda lurches up and forward in one jarred, frantic movement and so do tendrils of lurid scarlet magic, seizing the titan’s thick wrist. Crackling, turbulent static enraptures the telling green hexes that emanate from the time stone.

 Heartily, Thanos strains against her, his incredible might barely succeeded by the wrath of the blinding crimson that suffocates his movement. He grits his teeth, each the size of her balled fist, and manages to turn painfully slowly to meet her face. She’s close, spurred forward massively by her desperation to stop the stone in its process of devastating reversal. Their faces are inches away, now.

 Just like the last time, his expression is cast all wrong. Once again, he isn’t angry as he deserves. He looks guilty. He looks sad. It’s disturbing in a way that triggers all of her bodies innate systems of warning.

 “I understand, my child,” he begins, their world caught up in a storm of electric red and green, and Wanda almost falters. Almost stumbles in her stance. Bile rises in her throat; those words, those repulsive, _vile_ words raise every hair on her body with their nauseous intent and their sickening familiarity.

 “ _Wanda_ ,” _a_ _jarring_ _mechanical_ _voice_ _purrs_ , _softly_. “ _If_ _you_ _stay_ _here_ , _you’ll_ _die_.” _His_ _bright_ _eyes_ _are_ _flickering_ , _the_ _curved_ _pieces_ _of_ _metal_ _guarding_ _them_ _mangled_ _and_ _steaming_.

 Her face trembles and Thanos continues to stare, that same plastic sympathy, that identically false endearment playing up to her loss. That look of understanding, of empathy, of _I’m_ _sorry_ _for_ _your_ _loss_ , and _it_ _shouldn’t_ _have_ _been_ _you_...

  _She_ _tilts_ _her_ _head_ , _regarding_ _his_ _enticing_ , _gleaming_ _stare_ _for_ _only_ _one_ _further_ _moment_. _Energy coils restlessly around her fingers_ ,  _and she_ _contorts it_...

 ...She swallows her disgust thickly, and her face twists with malice, her magic spits and churns, emotion feeding into the inferno...

 “Better than anyone else,” Thanos whispers, his breath hot so close to her face, and Wanda _snaps_.

 

“You could _never_.”

 

_Her eyes burn as she sends torrents of fire surging through Ultrom’s body, splintering sheets of vibranium and plucking wires like hairs._

_She sees Pietro, broken and bleeding on the gravel_

 She sees Vision, crumpled and mangled in the leaves.

 Erupting from the depths of her being comes a piercing, rupturing scream which her body expels alongside a tremendous burst of power that consumes Thanos in bone-melting fire, and the clearing in a haze of red light. In that instance she’s overpowered him; she knows it as energy streams out of her palms relentlessly, as she registers the fear on his pathetic face and the raw instinctual terror radiating from the mind that has opened itself to her just as every other before it.

 Flailing in a last ditch attempt, Thanos stumbles backwards, but instead of falling backwards and indenting a Titan sized crater in the earth, the static suspends him. Wanda barely concentrates on the brute, can’t physically care less whether or not he’s breathing as she’s pouring everything into shattering the indistructable: the five small stones that’s garnish his bronze glove. She’s succeeding too, and the Universe doesn’t like it.

 In a huge surge of blinding, blue voltage, the tiny blue space stone bursts, imploding violently with the force of an entire belt of dying stars. Such an incredible expulsion of energy, a detonation supercharged to this level... it’s _world_ - _breaking_. There comes a passing second, a second of unintelligible agony, where Wanda truly believes that this is it- this is where her turbulent life ends, this is where the entire _world_ ends, in consequence of her ill-fated struggle. It’s the most sensible option. And then she turns that dread into fuel,because she’s never been one to go for the rational decision, and it’s exactly like drenching a flame in gasoline.

 

 _BOOM_.

 

The intensity of her scarlet magic flares only momentarily, but the peak is more than enough to reach breaking point, and after much aching, gruelling contusion, she manages to somewhat contain the enormous explosion. Wanda’s sight, her sound, her senses- they all shudder threateningly as she does so, as she rewrites every law of physics, rebrands every principle known to man (And creature, and alien, up above). Until finally, with an abhorrent, futile screech that she’ll never be able to forget, the blast folds in upon itself, with a comparatively soft _whump_. In sweet relief, she takes a steadying breath, alongside every other being in this universe.

 If not for Wanda, they’d all have been sucked into an unstoppable vortex that the space stone should’ve created in its death- a dieing star that wasn’t even a star but rather so much more powerful. She didn’t think she was qualified to deal with the inconvenience of a black hole, though, so she stops the whole ordeal before it can progress. It’s a rather new sensation, being able to sense a rip in the fabric of the space- time continuum. She discovers that it’s quite intimidating, actually.

 Her heart flutters; the guilt begins to build like a terrible poison in her heart. But then, as if he’s forcing it himself, Wanda’s mind turns immediately to the memory of Vision’s cool lips upon hers, jarring against the heat and passion of the irrevocable, unbreakable bond forming between the two of them. Unbreakable, ( _The stone corrupts, and his body fills with harsh yellow light)_  until now. Wanda’s heart throbs painfully, she hisses, _growls_ , and the budding supernova becomes nothing more than a pretty blue spark amongst the foliage.

 Power yields a much less impressive display. It does, for all its worth, seem to be more resistant than the first stone that crumpled between her fingers: maybe Wanda’s tiring, or maybe the universe is showing some miserable resistance at being thrown so widely of its axis. The latter, she believes, definitely hits the mark; the destruction,and subsequent creation, of such a high power (Violet ripples distort the air around the stone, and she feels it strain under her pressure. She twists her wrist.)is enough to tip over the energy balance, drastically. But it’s not as if this strength shes garnered has opened her third eye, and enlightened her spirit with the chivalry and strict responsibility of an omnipotent being. In fact, she can’t say, in this moment, that she really gives two shits about whether or not she’s pushing it too far. Because for a second, her worlds enveloped by purple, and then the purple’s absorbed in her veins, and she barely feels the sting...

 Next along in her tirade comes the time stone, which is unfortunate for the little green guy. This ones pretty personal, though less so than the mind; it’s the reason she has to do this. It’s the sole reason she’s become such a destructive force.For that particular pretty trinket, she’s reserved a special kind of hate in her heart.

 Against all odds, to her growing gratuity and, she’ll admit it, exhilaration, each abolition of a stone is easier than the last. Unlike she’d expect, the magic in her veins hasn’t been run dry- each time she breaks the casings, a massive, ungodly energy is reborn and channeled back through Wanda, who then turns it on its brothers in a vicious, concentrated beam. This one is almost too easy. Almost. She barely squeezes her hand and the stone is shattered into millions of glittery fragments...

 And the universe can’t make sense of it. In the messy, watercolour sky, the Wakandan sun rises and falls repeatedly in quick succession, sometimes stalling in its place and then turning into night, in the opposite direction. She recognises the confusion of the timeline incarnated in Thanos’ body: his skin shrivels with age, slackening and thinning until his sunken eyes are milky and glossed, but in a second it’s reversed, and rejuvenating once again.

 Everything around her, everything that she can sense, is morphing too, unsure of its place in the day, in the continuity of years passed and to come. Life warps to death and the cycle turns back on its head, strings of reality are pulled taut in improbable ways.

 It’s impossible to measure how long it’s been before everything seems to settle in one sudden, resolute, emerald shockwave that floods the ground, the African landscape bathing in a fluorescent, extra-terrestrial glow. 

 And she moves on just as quickly.

 Soul’s a tricky one, perhaps because Wanda’s so in tune with the likes of them: spirits, the conscience, the mind- all synonymous for the same element. This similarity, however, is a weakness she can exploit; the frequency of the power frozen in that orange ingot is a frequency she’s tuned into often before, she fiddles for only a moment before she’s found it, and she sends a bead of light especially on target. Like a leaf floating down stream, the pulse travels smoothly down the energy, hits dead on, and another huge explosion sounds- this one the colour of sunsets and candlelight.

 Suddenly, in the midst of a spectacularly unnatural technicolour fog,only one small ruby ingot remains. Reality. Throughout the timeline, it’s been a formidable weapon, ridiculously supercharged and impossibly powerful. Unbeatable. Now, however, it’s power is dwarfed entirely behind the effortless destruction of its’ siblings. Five infinity stones lay scattered as dust at her feet, and raw, explosive power ravages through Wanda’s bloodstream. The newfound insignificance of the stone is profound against Wanda. In comparison, it’s merely a pretty rock.

 At the face of all of the death and destruction it’s caused, the way the final infinity stone crumbles with a tiny fizzle of red sparks is rather anticlimactic. She’s seen prettier fireworks, and sparklers aren’t exactly common on the streets of Sokovia.

 There isn’t a deafening screech, or an explosion that blows the planet to senseless chunks. The fabric of space and time doesn’t split, or rip, or burst- in fact, everything’s a lot more settled than a second ago.

 

She’s done it. For real, this time.

 

Wanda scrambles across the dirt and finally clutches Vision’s body, hugs him to her chest so tight she’s sure she’ll never let go. He’s jarringly cold and unnaturally stiff; he fits perfectly tucked beneath her chin as she sobs freely.

 She doesn’t think she hears the chaos of everyone breaking through the tree line as if an invisible force has been lifted, but Clint’s strong arms are wrapped tightly around her shaking shoulders and everyone’s speaking to her, at her, about her. The ghost of a cold, smooth hand (Natasha’s, perhaps) gently brushes tears from her chin, pulls her charred, singed hair to the nape of her neck and dabs at a gash under her eye.

 They speak, but she doesn’t hear. At least doesn’t comprehend. They try to move her, but she won’t. The tears don’t stop falling.

 She runs the silky material of his cape compulsively through her fingers, and closes her eyes, ignoring all of the exceedingly worried whispers and murmurs.

 “ _I_ _just feel you,” Vis says, but the forrest is melted away; the stones mere fragments in the sand. They’re both gazing out onto an endless sea: a foamy, speckled painting of serenity lapping at a soft yellow sun. “I know,” Wanda says this time, and their fingers interlock tightly. His thumb rubs her palm. His hand is warm. “I know.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I really hoped you liked it! I enjoyed writing this a lot and I didn’t spend too much time on it, so I’m very sorry for some mistakes. It’s also written in a different tense than I usually use, so there’s that. Speak to me in the comments, suggestions and comments are highly highly appreciated :) (also, for anyone following my teen Wanda story, a new very long chapter is very close to being finished...)


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